medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Today (5. February) is also the feast day of:
Luke of Demenna (or of Armento; d. late 10th century). Today's less
well known saint from the Regno was a Greek monk originally from the
Val Demone, the northeastern administrative district of central and
later medieval Sicily roughly corresponding to today's Messina province
and to the more northerly parts of today's Enna and Catania provinces.
Whether the 'Demena' of his Vita refers to the Val Demone as a whole or
to a now vanished town near today's San Marco d'Alunzio (ME) is not
clear. L., who will have been born shortly after the Muslim conquest
of this part of the island, grew up at a time when its Greek Christian
religious institutions were under increasing threat from the area's new
masters. To escape these, after training at the monastery of St.
Philip of Agira at today's Agira (EN) he crossed over to Calabria and
there placed himself under the saintly discipline of Elias the
Speleote, at this time still living at or near Reggio. As Muslim raids
on coastal Calabria became more common, L. withdrew further and founded
small monastic community at today's Noepoli (PZ) near the Calabrian
border in what is now Basilicata. This is in a mountainous region cut
by several rivers: a distance view of Noepoli may give some idea of the
terrain (now inside the Parco Nazionale del Pollino):
http://www.zonaparco.it/z-noepoli.htm
Desiring further solitude, L. moved on to today's Agromonte (PZ) in the
upper valley of the Sinni, where he restored a small monastery, and
then moved further east to the upper Agri valley, where he settled at
today's Armento (PZ) and founded a monastic community that well after
his death became known as that of Sts. Anastasius and Elias at Carbone
and that during the kingdom's Norman-Swabian period was one of its
great royal abbeys with many properties and dependencies elsewhere.
But that was all in the future. In 982, hearing of the advent of Otto
II, L. fortified Armento against an attack that never came from the
Germans and Lombards who were soon to be decisively defeated by
Sicilian Muslims near Stilo in Calabria. Within a few years, though,
Armento was threatened by Muslim raiders. Gathering and blessing those
of his people (probably both monks and townspeople) who were both male
and fit to fight, the aged L., wrapped in a cloud of fire that
enveloped both himself and the pure white horse on which he rode, led
his little host in an attack upon the infidel camp. Many of the enemy
were killed or captured, while others fled in disgrace, casting away
their arms. Gandalf could not have done it better, though the author
of the lost Greek original of BHL 4978 (L.'s Vita) of course did not
have Tolkien for a model.
L. died not too long afterwards. His Vita as edited in the AA.SS.
places his death in 993, but current scholarly opinion offers a range
of dates from 984 to 995. Whereas he was buried at Armento, in time
his remains were removed for reasons of safety (and, perhaps, of
diocesan pride) to the cathedral of Tricarico (MT), where they are said
to remain today in a chapel dedicated to him. His monastery at Armento
suffered two disastrous fires and changed location several times; its
physical remains consist chiefly of rubble on a hillside in Basilicata
and an incomplete archive that was removed to Rome in the early
seventeenth century.
A distance view of Armento is here:
http://tinyurl.com/8ybro
and here's a close-up of one part of it:
http://www.grumentum.it/ingrandimenti/Armento_paesaggio.jpg
Tricarico's originally eleventh-century cathedral has been rebuilt so
often that it preserves virtually nothing of its medieval aspect.
Here's a page of views of it:
http://www.basilicata.cc/paesi_taddeo/t_728/p_monum/728_01.htm
The arms of Armento show L. mounted upon a horse that is anything but
gleaming white:
http://www.araldicacivica.it/comuni/indexc.php?extrac=s&id_comune=2758
Best,
John Dillon
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